Growing up, I was surrounded by friends and family who were generally agnostic to the idea that there is any real difference between governmental candidates and carried a general distrust of politicians, particularly those who seemed to be driven less by serving their constituents and more the ego and agenda tacked onto whatever campaign they…

As writers, there are two general guidelines that we are inclined to follow when discussing art – we are supposed to be objective as far as possible, as well as exercise enough restraint to make our arguments nuanced and detailed, using our words to explain why certain work is particularly intriguing. However, there are some…

In a career that has allowed him to explore various genres and stories, Gus Van Sant has proven himself to be extremely versatile at handling a diverse set of narratives, which are usually intrinsically tied to the concepts that fascinate him as a storyteller. Whether working with original material or adapting the work of others,…

A single individual creating art is a beautiful process, but there is something even more remarkable about a group of creative collaborators coming together to share their gifts and produce something extraordinary. Music in particular has been an art form that has allowed for some of the most fruitful collaborations between artists, going back to…

It isn’t very often that we find a filmmaker whose entire purpose seems to be to redefine the margins of what cinema can be and represent. Ryūsuke Hamaguchi has been working for the better part of a decade (with films like Asako I & II and the arthouse masterpiece Happy Hour drawing a small but…

From a distance, we observe a group of people talking and drinking on what appears to be a relatively pleasant evening in one of Vietnam’s central urban hubs. Off-screen, a crash is heard, followed by a cacophony of screens, and the characters begin to retreat out of frame. The camera follows them, but it’s slightly…

“Lisbon is a city of countless revolutions” Anyone who has ever visited the capital of Portugal is struck by several different features – it’s narrow, winding alleyways that weave steep downhills that eventually meet the ocean, with centuries of architecture scattered liberally throughout what was initially only supposed to be a small seaside town, but…

For decades, we have seen filmmakers chasing the spectre of Douglas Sirk, whose melodramas like All That Heaven Allows and Imitation of Life defined their era and have stood the test of time, being as appreciated today as they were when they first emerged nearly seventy years ago. One director that has successfully managed to…

Despite usually being associated with the carefree days of youth and the lack of proper responsibilities placed on us, childhood is not a particularly easy time, and the moment we start to take notice of the world around us is when our journey towards realizing some of life’s most challenging obstacles are waiting for us,…

“How do you thank someone, who has taken you from crayons to perfume?” – Lulu’s quietly confident voice poses this challenging question in a song that has been prominent on compilations of easy-listening hits for over half a century now, to the point where it sometimes feels like it is almost seen as a parody…